Jimmy was pale, but collected. His arm had swelled up to a great size already, and was very painful. Frank held his hand as near the fire as he could bear it, and rubbed the olive-oil in for half an hour; and then Dick and Frank walked him home between them. Mrs. Brett was naturally much alarmed, but Frank soothed her fears, and Jimmy was put to bed.
"Thank you, Frank," he said, "I am awfully much obliged to you."
"Then prove it by going quietly to sleep if you can. You will be all right in a day or two."
"How did you know about the olive-oil being a cure, Frank?"
"I was reading about it not a week ago, and as we were walking along this afternoon I was, strange to say, thinking about it, and imagining that I was bitten and curing myself, like one does make up pictures and rehearse scenes to oneself, when one has nothing better to do. It was a very strange coincidence."1
1 The best remedy for viper-bite is the injection of ammonia into the veins.
Common Ringed Snake.
Frank went home with Dick, and they took a short cut through the copse. Dick was looking about him very suspiciously, seeing the coils of an adder in every twisted root. Suddenly his eye caught sight of a snake lying across the path.